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Friday, 7 September 2012

Stockholm

For my birthday this year Nick and I headed to Sweden for Millencolin Fest, a little punk festival put on by Millencolin to celebrate their 20 year band-a-versary. For those of you thinking "Birthday? Wasn't your birthday in June Jojo?" Erm, yes, I'm a little behind, let's move on...

The festival was in the band's hometown, Örebro. They headlined both nights & it was amazing to see in my birthday dancing around to one of my favourite songs. The festival campsite was set up just down the road from the festival site and we stayed in a super cute little cabin. The campsite also had a water park so we spent plenty of time playing on the slides and in the wave pool, I definitely think more festivals should be set up like this! The festival wasn't great food wise, onsite this blue candy floss was the only vegan thing I spotted, but hey, I love candy floss!

Luckily there was also a supermarket between the campsite and the festival ground and they didn't do anything silly like ban you from bringing food into the venue so don't worry, we didn't starve! We ate plenty of fruit, bread, crisps and Swedish Glace ice cream cones which are called Tofu Line in Sweden. Yum!

After the festival we spent a few days in Stockholm. We'd wanted to visit for ages and it would have been rude to just fly in and out of the airport without spending any time there!

As soon as we got off the train from Örebro we dropped our bags off at the hotel and headed to Herman's Tradgardcafe to find lunch.

Herman's is a vegetarian buffet style restaurant with loads of outdoor seating and super amazing views of the old town across the water. The woman behind the counter was super helpful and she happily gave us a guided tour of the vegan options, everything was vegan except for one hot and two cold dishes that contained cheese.

As you can see we loaded up our plates with a bit of everything! My favourite parts of the meal were the tofu and herb spread which I smeared all over some delicious homemade bread, the potato salad, wedges, pasta salad with olives, and the carrot and raisin salad. As is traditional with buffets I accidentally picked one thing that was far too spicy for me but it was worth a try and I got Nick to eat it so that it didn't go to waste!

We sat outside and enjoyed the view...

...and as it was my birthday I wasn't going to skip dessert even after that humungous plate of food. I went to see if anything was vegan and as is always ideal in this situation it turned out that everything on the dessert table was vegan! I went for a piece of the most decadent looking chocolatey thing there.

This chocolate torte came with homemade whipped rice cream, I'd normally turn down any kind of cream with dessert, I just find cream icky, but I said yes this time because we were sharing and Nick wouldn't have been impressed if I'd said no! He convinced me to try it and I was pleasently surprised, it was really light and airy and not cloyingly sweet. I'd definitely say yes to whipped rice cream again.

We loved Herman's so much that we went back there on our last day. We were in a bit of a rush to get to the airport so I didn't take any pictures but the buffet was super vegan friendly again and it was a great last meal.

One place I really wanted to visit whilst in Stockholm was Kafé 44. Kafé 44 is a cafe, anarchist bookstore and music venue run by three different not for profit groups.

This place reminded me of The Cowley Club in Brighton. We shared a super cheap slice of delicious chocolate torte...

...and a Cuba Cola. I love it when places sell fun Colas like this.

We'll definitely head back to Kafé 44 next time we're in Stockholm. It was a really relaxed atmosphere and it was fun to see different groups meeting up there to work on projects.

We ate dinner at Kokyo twice during our trip. Kokyo aren't a veggie restaurant but they do have a separate vegan menu. We were super excited to find out that they even have an English menu, we weren't expecting that and we'd written down a few Swedish words to help us choose what to eat.

Whilst the restaurant advertises itself as a Japanese restaurant a lot of the menu seemed Chinese and there are a few reviews on Happy Cow that confirm that this is more of a Japanese/Chinese fusion restaurant.

On our first visit I ordered the Vegetarian Chef Special which came with a small plate of sushi to start.

We both love sushi & I was very pleased to see both Inari tofu and avocado on the plate. The main with the special is the Kokyo Wok.

As you can see this is a simple vegetable stir fry with tofu and seitan pieces. I have to say that this was nothing special, I wouldn't order it again and I'm surprised that this is the chefs special as everything else we tried had way more flavour.

Nick chose the Gongbao Surou. Soya protein, carrot & roasted peanut in an aromatic sauce with a side of steamed rice.

We loved both the tofu and the sauce but Nick wasn't impressed that they had replaced the carrots with two of his most hated veggies, red pepper and courgette!

We decided to go back a second time because we enjoyed the Gongbao Surou despite the change of veg, we loved the sushi, and we wanted to try a couple of the other dishes on the menu.

Of course to start we ordered more sushi. I love that this place makes their own tofu and the avocado was nice & ripe.

Of course I forgot to take a photograph of the rest of the meal but we ordered the Braised Vegetarian Balls to share and it was our favourite main out of the three we tried. There were plenty of meaty balls (hehe!) and the brown gravy-esque sauce was delicious. It was pretty huge too, which is always a win in my book, although we were a little sad that we didn't have any room for more dumplings!

Our other favourite place in Stockholm was Naturbageriet on Gamla Stan. It was a short walk from the Gamla Stan tube stop and in an area we really wanted to explore. We'd just planned to grab a quick breakfast from there but there were so many great vegan options that we took stuff to go for lunch too.

For breakfast we had a Kanelsnurra.

This delicious sweet pastry was perfect and we took two more to eat on the plane.

For lunch we took one of these Spinach & Tofu pasties...

...and a veggie sandwich stuffed full of avocado, sprouts & tomatoes in a delicious homemade roll.

We really loved Stockholm, well, Sweden in general really! We can't wait to go back one day. We thought the countryside was really beautiful and the city was remarkably chilled, peaceful & easy to get around. Perfect.

Thanks for Naturbageriet recommendation - first visit to Stockholm since going vegan and was worried about the pastry situation. Walked past that bakery loads of times on previous visits and never noticed it so glad I checked out your blog.

Also tried Chutney on Katerina Bangata for first time. Fantastic. All you can eat hot dishes that change daily + help yourself grated carrot & cabbage + lovely bread/crispbread + coffee ALL unlimited and ALL for £8! The potatoes and 'cream' dill sauce and blueberry pie with vanilla sauce were my favourites - great selection of vegan desserts including chocolate balls, chocolate tart and swedish apple pie.

It's in Stockholm's coolest district Sodermalm, which is well worth a visit just to soak up, well, the coolness!

I don't think I have any helpful, budget friendly rec's. Because we were there for my birthday Nick splurged on a nice hotel & from what I can remember it was a Radisson on or near the waterfront. I had a look at this for you but sadly there aren't any listings for Stockholm yet http://vegannomnoms.net/world-vegan-accommodation-list I hope you find somewhere great!

ABOUT ME

Oh hey! I'm Jojo! Vegan in Brighton is my travel, food and lifestyle blog. I'm currently living my life on the road as I made the leap from endless wanderluster to full time traveller in January 2015. Find out more about me, my travel plans, my likes and dislikes, and how to work with me on the About Me page.